StartConsole for Initiative Owners

As an initiative owner, you are the person accountable for keeping your initiative's data current in StartConsole. Leadership, PMO, and the signal engine all depend on the accuracy of what you enter. An initiative with outdated status, incomplete deliverables, or missing actuals produces incorrect signals and misleads the portfolio review.

Your core responsibilities

Update initiative status when things change. If your initiative moves from Active to Delayed, or goes On Hold, update the status field immediately. Do not wait for a scheduled review to reflect a change that has already happened on the ground. Stale status creates false confidence in the portfolio view.

Mark deliverables complete as work finishes. Open your initiative, go to the Deliverables tab, and mark each deliverable complete when it is done. Do not let deliverables sit as incomplete after the work is finished — this generates unnecessary delivery signals and makes your initiative look worse than it is.

Update key result actuals if linked. If your initiative is linked to an OKR key result, update the actual value when you have new data. Key result actuals do not update automatically — they require the owner to enter the current number. Outdated actuals make OKR progress reporting inaccurate for leadership.

Respond to signals raised on your initiative. When a signal is raised, you receive a notification with the flag category and a recommended action. Open the initiative, review the signal, take the appropriate action — whether that is updating a budget figure, escalating a dependency, or adjusting a delivery date — and confirm the action has been taken. If the situation requires a decision, log it in the Decisions section.

Log decisions when direction changes. If your initiative changes scope, pauses, or changes its delivery approach, log the decision in the Decisions section. Link it to your initiative. This preserves the reasoning for future reviewers and prevents the same question being asked in the next SteerCo.

How to keep your initiative healthy week to week

Check your initiative at least once a week. Review the Signals tab to see whether any flags have been raised. Check the Deliverables tab to confirm progress is reflected accurately. Glance at the Budget tab to confirm actuals are current. This takes less than ten minutes and prevents the data quality problems that generate escalations.